The countries of Southeast Asia continue to change, evolve and chart courses that sometimes leave outside observers puzzled. Politics in Contemporary Southeast Asia thoroughly assesses the political challenges and changes faced by the countries of Southeast Asia in the 21st century. Focusing on political processes throughout, Kingsbury introduces readers to the challenges of representation and accountability of the regional governments, degrees of good governance and transparency, and the role of elites and militaries in shaping or determining political outcomes. This book provides: A comprehensive, but accessible, introduction to political change and processes in Southeast Asia. Analytic criteria for assessment of case studies. Detailed country-specific surveys. Information based on extensive research on, and work in, the region. Providing cutting-edge coverage of Southeast Asian politics in all regions, this highly accessible and comprehensive book is suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate courses on Southeast Asian Studies, Asian Politics, and Democratization.

Contributing to the growing discourse on political parties in Asia, this book looks at parties in Southeast Asia’s most competitive electoral democracies of Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. It highlights the diverse dynamics of party politics in the region and provides new insights into organizational structures, mobilizational strategies and the multiple dimensions of linkages between political parties and their voters. The book focuses on the prominence of clientelistic practices and strategies, both within parties as well as between parties and their voters. It demonstrates that clientelism is extremely versatile and can take many forms, ranging from traditional, personalized relationships between a patron and a client to the modern reincarnations of broker-driven network clientelism that is often based on more anonymous relations. The book also discusses how contemporary political parties often combine clientelistic practices with more formal patterns of organization and communication, thus raising questions about neat analytical dichotomies. Straddling the intersection between political science and area studies, this book is of interest to students and scholars of contemporary Southeast Asian politics, and political scientists and Asian Studies specialists with a broader research interest in comparative democratization studies.

The essays in Spirited Politics throw light on predicaments that spring from the intersection of religion, ethnicity, and nationalism in contemporary Southeast Asian public life. Covering material from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines, the contributors explore the calamities and ironies of Southeast Asian identity politics, examining the ways in which religion and politics are made to serve each other.

This textbook provides a comprehensive introduction to the political systems of all ASEAN countries and Timor-Leste from a comparative perspective. It investigates the political institutions, actors and processes in eleven states, covering democracies as well as autocratic regimes. Each country study includes an analysis of the current system of governance, the party and electoral system, and an assessment of the state, its legal system and administrative bodies. Students of political science and regional studies will also learn about processes of democratic transition and autocratic persistence, as well as how civil society and the media influence the political culture in each country.

This book provides a state-of-the-art review of Southeast Asian political studies through a dialogue involving theoretical analysis, area studies, and qualitative methodology.

At the epicenter of the world's most dynamic economic continent, Southeast Asia provides a window into some of the most important contemporary global developments in politics, and plays a crucial role in determining the wider region's future. The 3rd edition of this highly-acclaimed text provides a comprehensive analysis of Southeast Asia's remarkable variety of political systems, cultures and traditions, which are without exception all undergoing a variety of major changes. Written by a team of leading experts on Southeast Asia, this volume provides an accessible introduction to a region being buffeted by profound internal social transformation and great power confrontation, as well as the continuing challenges of economic development and environmental management. Comprehensive in its analysis and ambitious in scope, this book will be the perfect introduction for students interested in the culture, politics, economy and society of the nations of Southeast Asia.

This volume examines the countries in Southeast Asia that have conducted multi-party elections.